I have mentioned in many conversations with friends and students that I had to write a book on slam bidding. I will write a series about it here on the blog - comments are highly appreciated!
I find the Losing trick count is a powerful tool for determining the possibility of bidding a slam. This works well for the first three deals in your introduction but fails in the 4th deal.
I would bid this 4th deal 1H 1NT
3C
At this stage, responder knows he has a huge fit. There is a problem here for Matchpoints players as by-passing 3NT can result in a poor score. Playing IMPS, raising 3C to 4C (forcing) is not a problem.
You might make the occasional comment comparing Matchpoints bidding with IMPS.
I will write a bit about the Losing Trick Count at some point. But the short version is that slam evaluation is very context-specific and works by visualization of specific hands. Mechanical rules (all of them including hcp) are at best a preliminary approach, but once we start the slam investigation, they have done their job and should be replaced by hand visualization.
Regarding MPs vs IMPs, stay tuned. Once we get to specific slam-hunting approaches there will be some discussion of that.
David Samuels wrote by email:
Hi Paulo
I find the Losing trick count is a powerful tool for determining the possibility of bidding a slam. This works well for the first three deals in your introduction but fails in the 4th deal.
I would bid this 4th deal 1H 1NT
3C
At this stage, responder knows he has a huge fit. There is a problem here for Matchpoints players as by-passing 3NT can result in a poor score. Playing IMPS, raising 3C to 4C (forcing) is not a problem.
You might make the occasional comment comparing Matchpoints bidding with IMPS.
I will write a bit about the Losing Trick Count at some point. But the short version is that slam evaluation is very context-specific and works by visualization of specific hands. Mechanical rules (all of them including hcp) are at best a preliminary approach, but once we start the slam investigation, they have done their job and should be replaced by hand visualization.
Regarding MPs vs IMPs, stay tuned. Once we get to specific slam-hunting approaches there will be some discussion of that.